


The Army of Unalterable Law

by firiette



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-04 06:01:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2954837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firiette/pseuds/firiette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ended on Monday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through seasons 1-5, AU after Two Minutes to Midnight (if those are even considered spoilers anymore)

Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.

And now upon his western wing he lean'd,

Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careen'd.

Now the black planet shadow'd Arctic snows.

~ _Lucifer in Starlight_ by George Meredith

 

**Then**

**August 4th, 1997**

The slamming of a motel door was a sound Dean had heard more in the last half year than Stairway to Heaven. Or even Thunderstruck. Maybe less than Rock of Ages, but somewhere in the vicinity above Welcome to the Jungle and Black Dog. What that mathematically added up to was a big, shining ball of fourteen-year-old Sam who, over the past six months, hated his life, his clothes, their dad, and now, as of two minutes ago, Dean.

The argument had been stupid, starting off disguised as them discussing (ha, discussing) what they were going to do when – if, when – they ran out of food, which went down the never-ending fucking road of Sam's anger towards their father. Dean had pushed, pointed out that Dean took care of them, so they'd be fine, they were always fine, but he might as well have been talking to a brick wall. Sam had started shouting after that, stomping around in aggravated circles, the already bruised kitchenette floorboards groaning with his weight. He tugged at his sweaty t-shirt as he yelled.

_He abandoned us, Dean._

_We're going to starve to death, Dean._

_He doesn't care about us, Dean._

_He doesn't care about you._

And Dean had shouted too, said whatever crossed his mind, flinging insults and digs that had made Sam's face twist, his mouth squeeze shut, and this awful fucking look fell like a curtain over his eyes. Quiet and oh so deadly, Sam spun on his heel in a whirl of brown hair, the door closing clapping like a gunshot.

The TV, on mute, was playing in the living room, people moving and speaking without sound, like an old vaudeville act. They hadn't seen the last part of _Return of the Jedi_. Which was okay with him. Dean really didn't want Sam anywhere near a movie where there was a kid who tried to slice his father into pieces with a lightsaber. Sam was impressionable, and easily provoked, and Dean was mildly scared he wouldn't blame his brother a bit if he decided to go Luke Skywalker on them.

John hadn't come home in twenty-two days. He hadn't called in twelve. There was nothing but peanut butter and grape jelly and half a loaf of Wonderbread left in the cupboards and the handful of twenties John had shoved in Dean's hands before he left was down to two dollars and three pathetic pennies.

Dean sat at the table, picking at a crusted soya sauce stain with his fingernail, pissed at Dad, pissed at Sam, and pissed mostly at himself for being pissed. Dad went on hunts, Sam got mad, Dean took the rap for it. That's how it had been since Sam could reach the sink to wash his own hands. It wasn't about the food, not anymore. Dean could always sneak some from a gas station or, if not, there was a vending machine near the rear entrance. It was about Sam, and him growing up, and him being too smart and too large for this tiny little existence as a hunter.

The Rebels were invading the Death Star on the TV when he threw his shoes on and set off to look for Sam. It was 7:30 and night was crawling in on them fast. There were things, monsters, that came out at night, and Dean was never angry enough to put Sam in danger just because they were mad at each other.

Dean tried not to notice how he lasted the whole of five minutes without him.

It was hot outside, but cooler than the motel room. The sun was setting, casting strings of orange, yellow, and pink over the deep green tiles of the restaurant across the road. Sam didn't go far – for his bluster and bother, he wouldn't leave. Opened, the gate to the motel pool made a slight squeaking noise from overused hinges that needed to be oiled twenty years ago. There Sam was, in all his sulky teenage glory, seated on his ass on the puke-yellow diving board, head bent over something in his hand. Dean didn't see what; he could only catch the broadening line of Sam's shoulders and the knobbiness of his spine.

He closed the gate and Sam looked up.

Dean hovered, dark shadows and red luminescent lights from the motel playing weird tricks with Sam's face. They watched each other in the semi-dark for a second, neither doing much, before Sam shoved his nose where it had been the entire summer – directly in some book. Sam had this annoying habit of moving his lips to whatever he was reading and he licked his fingers to turn the pages no matter how much Dean rolled around and gagged when he did. John had the habit, too.

Not that Sam wanted to know that. Ever. Sam was okay with having genes in common with him, and, sometimes, hardly that.

The diving board dipped and creaked when Dean sat on it. “Whatcha readin', beanpole?”

Sam centered himself more firmly where he was, glaring at Dean for nearly shaking him off. Or for the argument – with Sam, it's often hard to tell.“Stuff,” he grunted.

So that was how it was going to be today. He didn't make things easy.

“What kind of stuff?”

“A book,” Sam huffed, now eyeing Dean. “You know. With words.”

“Yeah, with words. I know what books are, genius. What are you reading?” Trying to peek over Sam's shoulder was pointless, what with Sam elbowing him in the gut. “Porn?”

Sam glowed red under his sunburn.

“No! You're such a pig.” He hunkered down into his book, burying his face behind yellowing pages, trying to look tiny in a six-foot frame. “Poetry, okay? And shut up. It's for school.”

“School isn't for three weeks.” But, of course, not like Sam cared. He'd practically salivated when he found out that they would be spending two months there on a werewolf hunt. “What's it about? Bees? Flowers? How the deep, dark ocean symbolizes the inner workings of your soul?”

“The end of times, actually. Fire. Brimstone. The works.”

Dean raised an eyebrow, grudgingly impressed. “Okay, okay, not as lame as flowers.” Dean leaned back on his palms, stretching out on the board. The toes of his boots skimmed the pool water. “Read me some?” he asked, and meant, _I'm sorry_.

“You're not serious.” Sam's eyebrows crept into his hair. “Dude, you hate poetry.”

“Think of this as your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to torture me with iambic pentameters and that shit.” Sam was quiet beside him – really quiet, head titled like he was trying to figure out if Dean was screwing with him or not, which normally he would be, but Dean was hungry and tired and Sam loved poetry.

“Well? You gonna do it or not?”

“You serious?”

Across the way, someone in room 202 had their window and curtains open and Dean could see the fan rotating on the ceiling. A bead of sweat ran down his forearm. He rubbed his face. “As the plague. As Ted Nugent's chin-eyebrow. What do you want from me? Just read it.”

“Fine,” Sam sighed, but Dean could see him smiling into his book, dimples poking out, and meant _I forgive you_. Licking his finger (gross) and turning the pages backwards a few times, Sam began to read: “ _Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice…”_

Dean watched the swirling grey-white blades of that fan in room 202, pretty certain this heat was close to what rose out of Hell, but he wasn't too inclined to care.

* * *

 

**Then**

**May 10th, 2010**

The world ended on a Monday.

Which. _Of course_ it would pick a fucking _Monday_ to end.

The day that's supposed to be filled with disgruntled parents woken too early and civilians complaining about the tediousness of their jobs and how they wish it was the weekend. Not on a full moon, not during Samhein or the summer equinox. A Monday. Average, ordinary, nothing-special-about-it Monday.

It didn't go out with a bang or a flash or people running in the streets screaming with blood pouring down their eyes, pointing up at the sky and shouting at the top of their lungs about the Apocalypse. No, it sizzled out, sputtered and went quietly, peacefully, like an eighty-year-old Christian lady in her sleep.

They were in Rainbrook, a town plunked down in the very space between Jasper and Hanceville on Route 69, twenty-five minutes after veering left on County Road 222. Thirty-six point two miles from Jasper, sixteen point nine from Dodge City.

The entire makeup of the streets were row after row of postcard southern houses, gleaming pearls strung together by paved roads. It was picturesque, the kind of place with men wearing knit sweaters and women in long white skirts. Dean and Sam checked into a moth-eaten motel – same as usual – and while they waited for their key, Dean wondered aloud what a community like this would do if a stripper found her way here.

Sam laughed. The check-in girl didn't.

The diner two blocks away from the hotel was nothing special, besides its grossly red walls that looked like ketchup – or blood – and the seats were plastic and uncomfortable, even in the booths. He ordered the special of bacon and fried eggs, smiling casually at a kid in the other booth, feeling almost weirdly content.

The cashier lady wasn't busy besides swatting at flies. She was doing it old-fashioned, rolled-up newspaper and flinging madly at the buzzing insects curling around the counter.

Swat, swat, swat. Splat.

“– these people?”

Dean frowned and tuned back into the conversation. “What?”

“I _said,”_ Sam huffed in a tone that meant he'd said it a lot, “do you have any suggestions for what could be killing these people? Ghost?”

“Hell, I don't know.” Dean shrugged. Crossed his arms. “But, hey, ya know what we should be doing?”

Immediately, Sam's lips turn into a frown. “Dean.”

Ignoring him, Dean carried on. “We should be using the rings to kick Satan six ways back into the Pit. And what're we doin' instead? Eating waffles.”

“Actually, I'm having an omelet.” The joke fell flat, strained. Sam cleared his throat and began fiddling with his napkin. “Okay, look, we can't do much until Lucifer is in Detroit. We can't track him, we can't find him, so why not do some good before then?” He met Dean's eyes, grinned a little. “Hunting things, helping people?”

God. Those words were always cropping up to bite him in the ass.

“Fine. All right.” Dean threw his hands in the air. “Christ. So. Ghost?”

Sam's shoulders visibly relaxed. “Sounds like it to me. Fits, doesn't it? Different people, but each a girl with the same hobbies, dropping dead from the same thing? All we have to do is find out who it is.”

“Sure, no problem. There's only a bazillion evil spirits to pick through.”

Swat, swat, swat. Splat. The cashier caught another, heaving an angry growl and muttering about crazy fly-hoards.

“Twelve potential evil spirits, actually,” Sam corrected. “Eh, well, eleven, since there's probably zero possibility the latest is the ghost. Point is, we have a big list.”

“Wouldn't it be one of the earlier deaths?”

“There's no way of telling a real suicide from a ghost-induced suicide, uh, murder. For all we know, the ghost could've only started recently, killing maybe two or three, or it could be the first girl.”

“You're basically saying we have a shitload of work to do.”

“Basically.”

“If you ask me, it's not any of 'em.”

“Who then?”

Dean took a gulp of his coffee – it wasn't bad, not good, but not bad either. “You know who.”

“Greta Bird? Not this again.”

“Hey, the hair on my arms is still standing up and it's been three hours since we left. You can't tell me that doll museum she's got going didn't give you the heebie-jeebies.”

“Okay, granted, the house is spooky. But you can't put an old lady as a suspect because she likes dolls, Dean.”

“Oh, I can't?”

“She's _eighty-three_ ,” Sam said, exasperated. “Plus she doesn't have a connection to any of the victims besides her granddaughter. She's not dead either, so she can't be a vengeful spirit. You need to be not alive to be a ghost.”

They grew quiet when the waitress – average-looking, short, lip ring, named Jena – dropped their plates without ceremony on the table. She had a mustard smear on her shirt, the tired-and-frazzled expression of a young kid working through college. She had a sweet 'enjoy, boys' for them, though, and a chipper greeting for the next table she waited on.

Dean spared the waitress a glance, then continued after a moment. “Voodoo then.” He picked up his fork and stabbed an egg. “She's goin' on the list.”

When he tossed his arm not-so-casually on the booth to land close to Sam's shoulders, just to bug him, Dean hid his smile behind his cup of coffee, and then turned and asked Sam what he wanted to do: go research in the local library, or interview the suspects.

They left the waitress a generous tip and Dean caught a fly with his palms on the way out.

The walk a block to the Impala was at once entertaining and annoying as hell. Sam complained about the bees, about the grasshoppers bouncing across his shoe, about the lack of information they usually encountered at these podunk libraries. Dean stopped walking when a flash of red and green color took his mind off of the _shut up, Sammy_ going through his mind.

“Dude, check it out.” He jerked his thumb at the front window of a thrift shop. Beside him, Sam slowed and peered through the glass.

“What?”

“ _Star Wars_ , man. I haven't seen that in years.”

 _Star Wars_ , the complete trilogy on VHS, shoved between _Encino Man_ and a 90's romcom. A bit dusty, torn, but still a beautiful sci-fi with robots and battles and absolutely nothing to do with angels or Lucifer or deals.

Sam's narrowed eyes glanced at him sideways. “You're not getting _Star Wars_.”

“Why not? Lightsabers, good n' evil, Princess Leia, ours for a dollar ninety-nine. You can't say no to that.”

“No, Dean. We're on a case, remember?” But by the end of his question, Dean was already opening the door, eyes on the beaten-up VHS.

“What? We can't stop to watch a movie? C'mon, Sammy, live a little. The Apocalypse isn't going anywhere.”

Sam rolled his eyes and waited in feigned disinterest while Dean bought the tape. He made comments the entire walk to the Impala how he wasn't going to watch it, how Dean was such a nerd for those films, both knowing full well that they'd be sitting on the couch with a bag of Cheetos and quoting Yoda by six o'clock.

Normal Monday.

Normal except that night Dean went to sleep with the sound of Han Solo's blaster and cicadas buzzing his damn ears off, the next morning he woke up to absolute silence. Nothing. At first, he'd thought there was something wrong with his ears – a change of pressure, sudden deafness, hoodoo, a spell. In his line of work you couldn't rule out any possibility. Then Sam sat up in the bed beside him, eyes wide, and said, “Where are the bugs?”

And they knew then and there that the problem wasn't them at all, but the world.

The ghost's case was forgotten.

For some reason, Dean thought about that waitress, back at that diner. He thought about the girl at the reception desk, who hadn't smiled at his jokes, and the creepy old lady with the doll museum He thought about them and wondered what they were doing at the end.

And, truth be told, it didn't really end. Not per say. There were still people everywhere when Dean looked out the window, going about their morning business of newspaper-reading and getting ready for work and kissing their wives goodbye. A young mother across the street was helping her kid – a seven-year-old girl with a yellow backpack – get ready for school. It was so domestic and perfect that Dean wanted to throw up a little, because him and Sam felt it and saw the world ending right in front of their eyes. Even if no one else did.

It took three whole days before anyone noticed. That's when news reports started rolling in about the mysterious vanishing of animals, of house pets tearing off their leashes or clawing through screen doors and up and high-tailing it into forests, of the total absence of bugs. Obviously, the wildlife knew what was up before the stupid humans could grab a clue. Then the more serious things, like drops in temperature and extreme climate changes. Stuff like it snowing in the Sahara Desert, lakes freezing over in the middle of a heatwave.

When snow hit the small town in Alabama in late May, people stumbled out of their houses in shorts and t-shirts to stare up at the flakes with the craziest mirror expressions of awe and fear Dean had ever seen. He touched the fogging glass on the windowpane, drew fat lines in it, and marvelled at how he'd always thought it would've been ash plugging the streets with white. It was the Apocalypse in the way the Bible had never predicted. Dean Winchester had slept right on through the world's end. He hadn't been able to do a thing about it and Sam spent hours staring blankly at his laptop screen, hands as empty and useless as Dean's. All they could do after that was stand on the precipice and watch as the sky fell down.


	2. Interlude

Back over the sill

I bade a “Come in”

To whoever the knock

At the door may have been.

So at a knock I emptied my cage to hide in the world

And alter with age.

~ _The Lockless Door_ by Robert Frost

It was funny, in that morbid kind of way that wasn't actually funny, that he had spent a whole year fighting his addiction, with Dean right along side him telling him how fucked it was, and now Sam was back where he'd been before Lilith and the final seal and Hell – drinking demon blood, except with his own cheering squad of Dean, Bobby, and Castiel this turn around. They had changed their tunes quickly enough when they needed Sam to knock back a demon's juice to save the world. Weird how life worked out sometimes.

Just looking at the containers – milk jugs, _milk jugs_ , like this was a supernatural game of _Fear Factor_ – nestled in the Impala's trunk had made him sicker than when he'd contracted the stomach flu from Lacey Carter in third grade.

There was no possibility of not doing this, of giving up, of saying to his brother, “Hey, maybe we could forget this, go hide out in the countryside until this blows over, maybe get a dog.” He had no choice. Dean wouldn't agree, anyway. He would only fight that much harder, longer, to see this through. Sam couldn't let that happen. Dean had been taking the hits for him longer than Sam knew how to talk, and he was just supposed to step aside? Let Dean do what he does best? Let him sacrifice it all for Sam again? No, Sam wasn't going to let it happen. Not this time.

The jug's handle was plastic and cold in his grip. The first sip was like falling, or like dying, or something in-between that Sam couldn't name. The second was worse because the wrenching in his stomach began to slowly turn from disgust to craving. Each sip afterwards, thick red sludge sliding down his throat, was hungered for more than the last. Sam felt blood decanting from his lips as he steadily tipped the jug farther, making his chin wet and sticky, soaking his neck, the collar of his shirt.

Dean didn't watch.

By the last drop in the last container, he could feel it thrumming through him, giving him the strength he'd tried for but couldn't reach with Ruby, like a black cloud plugging up his veins and seeping through the pores of his skin. Sam felt powerful. He had never expected that, to feel powerful and be able to stare down the Devil with the same misplaced bravery his brother had shown their whole lives. He had drunk so much blood, more than he ever had before. And it was all for him. All for Lucifer.

But, really, it was all for someone else. Of course, Dean wouldn't believe that. Or he'd call him a girl for the sentiment.

Sam thought, standing in Detroit, that he would have guessed a former angel of the Lord would choose a place more grand, with more panache. Something more impressive. Maybe the summit of a sky-scraper. Maybe the very base of an underground cave, stalactites and oozing black shadows, otherworldly and wild, much like Lucifer himself. Or the ironic quality of a church. He hadn't pictured this – a creepy, rickety apartment building about six million years old, its wood decaying as soon as you'd look at it.

“Let me go in first,” Dean told him.

"Dean, come on.”

But Dean was already tucking his gun into the back of his belt, flipping his coat to cover up the handle. “I always go in first. You know that. Older brother ruling.”

It was unfair, but it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter in a couple of minutes who went in first or who was last. It wouldn't matter what foot they put in front of the other, or that Sam's hands shook, or his mouth was full of iron. Because this was it. Nothing but their plan mattered.

Sam glanced quickly around them (old habits die hard) to see if anyone would see, or care, that they were essentially breaking and entering. There were no people in sight, likely hiding from the weather at home. He could see right across the street, could catch a glimpse of a Chinese restaurant. It had a sign in its doorway boasting about a special on lo mein, and in scrawling cherry script under that was written The Deal of the Century! Snow had piled high on the striped awning above the storefront; there was no telling how long it would stand under the weight before it collapsed.

“Fine,” Sam said.

Dean went in first.

The door opened easily, not locked or warded. Though, Sam supposed, that would be rather useless in an an entire building wriggling with demons. By the look of it, no one – human or otherwise – had gone near these apartments in a very long time.

They were greeted by six demons when they stepped inside the claustrophobic hallway. They were lined up, three on either side, unaggressive and unblinking, like statues. They were lackeys, ones Sam could kill in a second with no more than a thought.

Dean tensed beside him but didn't react as one of the demons stepped forward. It was a man, tall, shaven, in a business suit so thin the host must've been freezing. It was silent, its eyes flitting to black to brown once, nodding its head at them in a gesture Sam took to mean they were supposed to follow. The three of them walked up the creaking staircase without speaking, no banter and no snide jokes from Dean to distract Sam. They were led to the second floor, down another hallway smaller than the last, and to a door marked as room 999. The symbolism wasn't lost on him.

The inside was somehow, by some miracle, more disgusting than the outside. Dirty curtains and an ugly carpet, what was left of it, that shed and had worn to thin, stretchy splotches. The sheer dust and dirt was off-putting. It made Sam feel unclean. But with the demon blood flooding into his heart, feeling polluted was hardly a new experience. Sam had been unclean for years.

It took a moment to locate Lucifer in the fading yellow light, but there he was, a dark shadow against the apartment window. He hardly blinked as Sam and Dean were escorted in. The glass of the window was fogged with humidity, Lucifer sketching pitchforks into it, lazy, like he had really nothing better to do.

“Sorry if it's a bit chilly,” he intoned, voice sliding, slicking, over them. “Most people think I burn hot. It's actually quite the opposite.”

Before Sam could say what he had to – “I'm here to say yes”, like he'd rehearsed, like they'd _planned,_ – Lucifer was there beside him, spilling perfect, pretty words as the vessel's face corroded, its skin peeling off in burning red pock marks. He grinned wickedly, looking for a split second very similar to the fork-tongued demon he was supposed to be, whispering to Sam that special word.

A deal.

“A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Sammy,” Lucifer murmured, low, for Sam's ears only. “One you can't refuse.”

A bargain. Deal of the century.

Just like that, the plan stopped mattering.

In his lifetime, he'd been told that things that looked too good to be true probably were – and not only that, but they were probably cursed or possessed too. But this was an opportunity. If it worked, if Lucifer kept his side of it, then…

How could Sam not?

He was a Winchester – they self-sacrifice until there's no breath in their bodies and no ground left to stand on. If he were Dean, he would deny the deal. Laugh in Lucifer's face. Go on with the plan of using the Horsemen's rings to open up the Cage. Dean had said no to Michael, but, then, he was always the smarter one of them, the one with more sense and intelligence than their father had given him credit for, and Sam was the brother who grew his hair too long and defied their father's rules and ran away to California. Dean had said no simply because he was Dean. Because, when push came to shove, he was there with a smart remark, Metallica in the tape deck, and ready to do what was right.

Sam was not Dean.

Lucifer's hand landed on Sam's shoulder, weight heavy there, and everything buckled and collapsed.

“Yes,” Sam choked, feeling the aching quiet, the cold air, smelling the musty walls and dust. The word hurt, tore up his throat with razors on butterfly wings. But still Sam said it, he said, “Yes,” and meant yes, and closed his eyes against the squealing light, Dean's cry of outrage lost in the cacophony. He only wished that the betrayed, anguished look in Dean's eyes wasn't the last thing he saw. He knew, though. He knew that Dean's face would stay with him, a brace between his teeth for the pain, for what was to come.

Lucifer grasped onto him, fingers thin, chilling on his shirt, and suggested, “Get ready for a bumpy ride,” and pulled him in.


	3. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo hoo first update in forever 
> 
> sorry

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there, I do not sleep.

~ _Autumn Rain_ by Mary Frye

 **Then**  
**1999**

On May 2nd, 1996, Sam had turned fourteen and it was like an unknown switch had flipped on. Everywhere they went, Sam had wanted to stay longer, fought harder to go to school, started trying out for soccer teams. He had dug his heels in with a tidal wave of stubborn resolve that John had sworn would pass but never did. Sam hardly paid Dean any attention – he hardly paid anyone any attention, but Dean more so – except when Dean finally washed his hands of school altogether and got his GED. That day, Sam had been so proud, he'd managed to pull himself away from his piles of textbooks long enough to tack the GED onto the refrigerator with a ladybug magnet, displaying it like it was a trophy instead of a tacky piece of crumpled paper that he'd only gotten because he hadn't wanted to waste his time with highschool. (He hadn't told Sammy that, mostly because the kid had smiled and those were so rare back then Dean couldn't bring himself to destroy it.)

Four agonizing years later, Dean had almost – almost – thanked God when Sam turned eighteen. He'd stupidly thought that whatever was dragging his brother down into some awkward teenage hell would pass. It became a sort of mantra. It'd go away when Sam turned eighteen. When he was eighteen, it would be better.

Obviously, it didn't go away. It wasn't better. If anything, the moment Sam blew the candle out of a piece of blueberry pie Dean paid a dollar ninety-seven for at the local diner, it got worse. Dean sort of knew then. Knew that the sad determination flickering in Sam's eyes was a prelude to what was going to come after. He saw it all happening, like in slow motion, and didn't understand it enough to stop it.

And Dean was so, so stupid, thinking that he had a good life going for him. Sure, Sam and John fought like cats and dogs most days, and sometimes the air in the Impala was so dank Dean could see the tension, but he had his brother and he had his father and life wasn't that bad after all.

Apparently it was, because Sam couldn't sit still for more than ten seconds at a time, it seemed, always jittery and staring out the windows wherever they were, at the outside world that Dean never quite felt a part of, but which Sam seemed crazily in tuned to. Dean watched everyone and everything with a mix of hatred and wary acceptance. Sam, now, Sam saw possibilities. He looked out a window and saw something good. Maybe that's why he was itching so bad for change He wanted some of that good for himself. Or maybe it looked okay enough to him that it outshone what Dean and John could offer.

It took four years before it clicked in what, exactly, it was that Sam was itching for.

It was August, sweltering, and they were supposed to be on a routine hunt. Except the routine hunt turned into a not-so-routine mad chase to find the thing that was dragging dumb, wide-eyed teenage kids into the lake and drowning them. It was a kelpie, the legend wedged between a geography book with a torn spine and a cooking how-to in Wewoka's tiny library.

Outside, the sun would be coming up soon – sucked, Dean could use some more relief.

Sam was twisting the bottom of his t-shirt in his fingers. Angry energy, hair messed and eighteen that year, casually growing into his father's cheap suits as fast as he was his new body.

The only word that could possibly describe him was 'long.' Hair, arms, everything. The nights he spent hunting, studying, avoiding their dad. The days he went for hours without saying a word to anyone, without bothering to do much besides reading, without smiling. All of it was _long._

Too bad the kid's temper wasn't.

“Don't talk to him like that! Stop giving him orders!”

“Be quiet, son.”

“No, Dad, I won't shut up! You can't intimidate me into obedience anymore. We're your kids, not your soldiers! And, goddamn it, Dean isn't your puppet!”

John put his gun down on the table, slowly. “Your brother is not my puppet, Sam.”

Sam was practically strangling his t-shirt now. “No? Then send me. Let me go in first. God, Dad, for once give _me_ the dangerous job instead of Dean!”

“Dean has more experience. You know he does. It makes more sense for him to go in ahead of you.”

Sam clenched his jaw, his hands letting go of his hem, shaking all over for some reason. “I'm not as experienced? I've been hunting every bad bastard since I was twelve!”

Sam's voice was reaching hysterical levels, nostrils flared out, tension making his back one hard line.

John finally drew up to his height, which was ceasing to be as big as it once was. But his anger was plenty frightening enough. His eyes were storm clouding over. “Sit down! This isn't up for discussion.”

“It never is!” Sam spat back, words sharp. “You want Dean to die, don't you? You couldn't fucking care less if we both just dropped dead at your feet. All you've ever cared about was your damned vendetta against the thing that killed Mom. You know what? I'm glad she's dead! Then she can't see the shitty person you really are!”

Dean had seen John violent, seen him splotchy all over with blood, seen him shoot things and beat monsters with his fists when their guns ran out of bullets. But never one of them. Not until that day.

The sound of knuckles smacking bone and flesh made Dean jump for the first time in his life. He barely registered what happened, not until Sam climbed to his feet, stubborn tears in his eyes and his left cheek a beacon of red.

“Don't you ever – ever – talk about your mother that way! Are we clear?” When there was no answer, John repeated, deathly quiet, “I said, are we clear?”

“Crystal clear. _Sir,”_ Sam snapped, eyes dead and hard and eerily determined in a way that spelled trouble.

It was no surprise that he didn't join them after that, stomping to their shared room and locking himself in. They couldn't wait for Sam to suddenly wake up and realize that saving those people was more important than whatever pointless family bickering they were up to now. Even if he was being stupid, Dean wished he could talk Sam out of this teenage bullshit, make him see what dad was trying to do. Toughen Sam up, make sure the world didn't swallow him up. Dean could see it, and he was scared just like John was. Sam wasn't made for being alone, wasn't ready to be an adult.

“Let him mope,” John said after catching Dean trying to see Sam through the upstairs window. “He'll cool off soon enough.”

Three hours, two soaking cheerleaders and one dead kelpie later, and Dean was feeling high as a fucking kite. Despite the fact he was covered in magical horse blood. Emily Rose was safe, the boyfriend her best friend had accidentally almost sacrificed to a water god was scared but alive – which was more than most kelpie victims could say – and nothing more to do for the rest of the morning than try to coax his brother to eat greasy food.

Him and John bustled into the house, congratulating each other, the hunt coming away easy like almost nothing ever did anymore, and John was smiling for once in a goddamn week, like he used to when Dean was four. Everything from before was gone, it didn't matter, their argument jammed under a rug.

John slapped Dean good and hard on the back as they were cleaning kelpie goo off their knives. “Pack your things, Sam,” he called. “We're headin' for Wichita next.”

Something was up when Sam stomped down the stairs, nothing with him but a grim face and a crumpled letter in his hand.

Sam dropped it on the table. And it was weird. Just weird how something like a little letter could make so much noise. The words _Stanford University_ were stamped on the front and, despite the heat, Dean went cold as ice inside.

He didn't need to read it to know what it was, didn't need to ask who it was from to get what it meant.

“Sam, I won't tell you twice –” John paused, eyebrows drawing inward, smile dying. “What is that?”

Dean wanted to cover his ears. Hide. Take Sammy to their favorite drive-in movie joint downtown and eat gummy worms and laugh until Sam was throwing up, he'd be so happy.

_It's not happening._

_It's not._

Funny how fast the sun can rise and change everything.

Funny, too, how grown-up Sam looked right then. “That's my acceptance letter to Stanford. I'm going to California.”

Dean's stomach dropped out and his world sort of imploded and expanded, all at once.

He dropped his knife with a clatter. He barely heard it hit the tile. “You…what?”

Sam didn't even flinch. “Stanford. It gave me a full scholarship. Full ride.”

“Like hell you're going to California,” John said, standing up. “Pack your stuff, Sammy, or leave it behind.”

“No!” Sam shouted. “Fuck you, Dad. Just fuck you. I'm not gonna stay here and die bloody. Dean might want that, but not me. I'm gonna have a career – a life!”

Dean flinched, feeling sick. “Sammy,” he choked.

“You'd abandon us? Your _family?"_

“I'm – Dad, I'm going. You can't stop me.”

John said, “If you're going, you better stay gone.”

And that's exactly what Sam did.

And Dean didn't stop him.

It took two hours to arrange the school records and recommendation letters for Stanford. It took Sam less than one to pack.

Through that hour, John locked himself in the back garage, clanging away, most likely trying to fix stubborn broken pieces that wouldn't fit together. The radio was playing a loud, awful song that had screaming guitars and Dean couldn't concentrate for the life of him to figure out if it was Metallica or not, and the crack of metal on metal didn't help him.

Dean sat at the table and didn't say a single word.

Sam took the stairs down much slower than he had the first time, his steps sharp as gunshots in the dead house. Dust shook in the air, Dean shook, and Sam was just standing there with his deep blue duffel bag and jeans with the ripped knees, just looking at Dean. Asking a silent question.

For just that second, Sam was _Sammy_ again, a skinny eighteen-year-old kid that Dean had to take care of and look after, whose backpack he had to carry because Sam'd broken his arm, and Dean thought maybe, maybe he could do it. Maybe he could go with him.

Maybe.

Then Sam slung his duffel onto his shoulder, breaking their gaze, becoming the stranger that had been slowly replacing his little brother over the past three years. The one that wore baggy sweaters and bangs to hide his eyes and spent more time screaming at his family than loving them.

The screen door didn't slam, but it shut so gently it hurt, like Sam had given up on being angry. Dean was off his seat in a second, tearing into the living room, a hole in his chest he couldn't even breathe around. He bit the inside of his left cheek raw, so grateful he wouldn't be able to watch Sam get onto that bus, see the sickly metal-grey vehicle take away what little he had left of his family. Watching Sam's trek down the road through the moth-eaten green curtains, the hot rising sun in front of him, Dean had the dawning realization that he was going to be alone.

The walk to the bus station was a long one and Sam didn't look back, not once.

* * *

 

 **Now**  
**May 30th, 2010**

Dean jolts awake in Bobby's house, elbow jerking off the table and no Sam in sight, and he has one of those moments when you're stuck not completely knowing where you are, what happened, what time it is. Slowly, the room comes into focus, along with the musty smell of books that's just native to Bobby's place, and the acute sense of plain wrongness that hasn't gone away since Satan decided to pull the plug. The ancient radio by his shoe is stuck on an unknown station playing some CCR song statically in the background. He marvels at that, how everything – everything – can change, and the district radio station is still broadcasting classic rock.

The first thing Dean does is drink a large dent in Bobby's liquor cabinet. And Bobby lets him, always barely in Dean's periphery, leaning against the doorjam or scrubbing at the two dishes in the sink. But he's so full of shit, because he keeps cutting hesitant glances from under the brim of his cap, and Dean's not so drunk he can't see it. Bobby doesn't mention Sam's name for a good long while, and Dean's grateful for that, else he might start punching somebody and never stop. Maybe Bobby's worried, maybe he wants to make sure that Dean won't drink himself to death. Whatever it is that inspires Bobby to hover over him, Dean tires of it real quick and retreats out the back door, letting it slam shut, heading to the Impala with a bottle of Jack in one hand and a wrench in the other.

He's had one too many to be of any use – not that the Impala needs it, he keeps his Baby in tip top shape – but he could use another distraction and the alcohol just isn't cutting it anymore.

His coat slips over his arms and is zipped before he sets a toe outside, a foot of snow that hasn't melted an inch after the first snowfall. Minus ten degrees during the day, minus nineteen during the night, and dropping daily.

The crunch, crunch, crunch of his boots on the snow follows him to the garage.  
Bobby follows quite a bit later.

It's dark out and dead silent the moment Dean looks up from tinkering around Baby's engine, putting too much effort into it and not getting far. By the time Bobby sludges a path across the salvage yard, Dean's approximately a hundred miles from sober and viciously numb; probably not from the cold or from the beer.

The radio in the Impala is still going, cranked up to high, and all it does is play CCR on repeat, interrupted by bouts of weather announcements and military movements.

John Fogerty is warbling about running out of songs to play.

Bobby clears his throat over the music.

“We lost, Dean.”

_Lost to destiny._

_Lost the battle._

_I lost Sam._

A flash of white light that burned and wormed and felt almost black, a satirical smile, and Lucifer had vanished, taking Sam with him.

_“– Oh! Lord, stuck in Lodi again –”_

“No,” Dean hears himself say. “No, we didn't fucking _lose._ Get me? We still have options, Bobby. What about Castiel? What about –”

“He's gone, Dean," Bobby says, and Dean can't breathe right until he clarifies, “Castiel disappeared as soon as…” He clears his throat, uncomfortable. “He eighty-sixed us and I got no idea where the kid went. He was pulled by something, at any rate. Damned if I know what.”

 _What._ That's a good question. It could be Heaven, Hell, anyone and anything in between by this point. Or Cas just fucking bailed on them when he realized that Sam wasn't coming out of that apartment. Not alive.

Dean whips around and flings the wrench into the side of a rusted truck, not surprised when denting a huge hole in the metal door doesn't make him feel any better.

“He said yes, Bobby! Fuck.” There isn't another wrench to throw and Dean flexes his hands, itching for a knife. A gun. He runs his fingers through his hair instead. “He. He just left. Why'd he do that? Lucifer knew about the rings. He should've – we coulda got outta there, thought of something else.”

“Dean, there weren't nothing else,” Bobby says. “There _is_ nothing else. Sam was our last hope.”

Dean reels back, something cold and sharp peeling away inside him.

Sam was.

'Was,' not 'is.'

That's the crux of it, that he's so quickly reached this stage. The place when people start referring to someone in the past tense – Sam was. Sam was the last hope. Instead of being gone or lost, they're filed forever in other's minds as unattainable, the plane of existence that means they're gone for good, no getting them back.

Bobby's already given up on more than just stopping the Apocalypse. The bitch of it is it hasn't even been twelve hours yet. Well, Dean knows better than anybody how fast people lose hope. It can be quick as blowing out a birthday candle – just poof and it's done. He can't be one of those people, not if he plans on saving Sam.

He's sitting in the Impala, just sitting there, beer clutched in his hand – maybe this will be his final one, who knows how long beer is going to last once they stop making it – when he makes his decision.  
This is it. He's not going to waste more time he doesn't have emo-angsting surrounded by a bunch of dead, rusting cars. He's got better things to do.

Bobby is standing in front of the kitchen sink when Dean gets inside, holding a cup of whatever's hot between his hands. The boiler will kick out in a few years, no telling what Bobby will do then.  
“Where are you going?”

“I'm gonna go get Sam,” Dean explains slowly. “You can stay here if you want, but I'm gonna get my brother.”

Bobby makes a gruff noise in the back of his throat that sounds like he was expecting nothing less.  
They load the Impala with canned food and about as much gasoline as they could siphon from other abandoned cars. There's blankets and rechargeable batteries and shoelaces and all manner of things nobody thinks of taking with them until they need it. They fill it until Baby is bulging; they don't know how far Dean will be going, or how long he'll be before he comes back. If he does.

Bobby corrals one last container into the backseat, leaving the front and the passenger side empty purely out of habit, as if Sam is still there. He hems and haws, scratches at his head, adjusts his cap. “You, uh, you can come back here anytime. Just…just take care of yourself, all right, Dean? Don't go gettin' yourself killed.”

Dean wants to say more, knows he should. He slams the trunk's lid and says, “You too, Bobby.”

These days, it's the best they can offer.

Dean slides into the Impala, chafing and patting himself down from the cool shock of the cold leather. It's plain weird, to have that empty seat right next to him, somehow seems colder. This isn't his first experience being alone, not even his first time chasing Sam down alone, and he has the feeling it's probably not going to be the last. But if he's gone to Stanford, and if he's gone to Ilchester, then he'll go to goddamn Antarctica to find him.

And he will find him. If he has to tear down Heaven and Hell, rip the walls apart with his bare hands, to do it, then so be it.

Turns out, John Fogerty was right. This isn't new, same old.

_Oh! Lord, stuck in Lodi again._

* * *

**Now**

**July 2010**

The world may have ended in May, but it stopped completely when Sam said yes to Lucifer. Fifteen days after Dean leaves Suez Falls, the Croatoan virus starts in Seattle. Maybe it's a demon this time, like Crowley. Or an angel. Or maybe the end times just plain sucks and figures humanity needs an extra helping of awful. It doesn't matter either way. Once those first people are infected, it spreads out in a wildfire, a hoard of zombies flocking in a foul cloud across the country.

Bobby calls for the first time in weeks and Dean picks up, juggling a can of Prego and a bag of frozen peas he raided from an empty house that had a huge freezer in the backyard. There was a swing-set and a dirty purple playcastle back there, too, probably belonging to a couple of little girls.

No sign of them or the parents.

“I know a lady,” Bobby says without preamble, soon as Dean flips the cell open. (They still have satellite; for awhile, anyway.) “She might be able to help.”

“Thought you decided that you weren't in this.”

“Okay, listen. I think you ain't getting Sam back. I think this is the end of the line. But,” Bobby breathes out, hard, “if this'll stop you from doing something stupid, like finding a demon and making another goddamn deal, then I'll do whatever you need. I'll go to the doorstep of any psychic and hoodoo man I know to stop that.”

Dean can't deny that, can't lie and say he's not going to try if this lead doesn't work out. If he gets more desperate.

He stamps his feet to stay warm. “What's her name?”

Bobby pauses over the line, like he was expecting Dean to not ask. Maybe to even give up run tail-between-legs back to Singer Salvage.

The silence stretches on before Bobby sighs into the phone static and says, “Zuri.”

Of course. It couldn't be Sally or Angela or something normal.

“Thanks, Bobby.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just –” Another sigh, this one resigned. “Just keep an eye out.”

Dean laughs as he steps over a caved-in neon blue kiddie pool. There's nothing much else to say.

* * *

 

Zuri is a weird woman, dressed in rainbow colors and beads like someone perpetually stuck in the seventies, soft-spoken and burdened with one of the strongest Cajun accents Dean's ever heard. She's older, maybe in her mid-forties, dark-haired, dark-skinned and curvy in the exact right places. She's also tall, practically Dean's height, and he has an overwhelming feeling of being intimidated by her. It hardly helps that Zuri's pretty face is half marred by mottled scarring from her hairline to her chin, from her chin to disappear under her blouse, making her look rough and brutal.

Dean tries hard not to stare at it, knows if Sam were here he'd elbow him in the ribs to get him to stop.  
“Cookie?” Zuri offers. She holds up a plate full of sweet-smelling desserts that're resting on her coffee table. “Fresh-baked t'is mornin'.”

They look and smell delicious, and Dean hasn't eaten anything since Tuesday night, and he hasn't had sugar in maybe two months, but he's pretty certain he'd rather take on a wendigo than shove food into his twisting stomach.

Dean shook his head politely and fiddled with the fraying edge of his sleeve.

“Please,” Zuri asks. Orders. “Take one. Ya're too skinny. Could feed ya to me cat, 'cept he's done had mice more appetizin'.”

Not completely put at ease, since that cat is freaking huge and keeps glaring at him, Dean takes a cup from the tray, smelling ginger, hardly drinking more than a mouthful. He doesn't touch the cookie, knows he won't.

“So,” Zuri says casually as she sets down a tray of herbal tea next on the coffee table. “Dean Winchester. You've got quite a reputation if _I've_ heard of ya. What can I do for ya, boy?”

“No offense, ma'am,” he begins roughly. “But I didn't come here for Earl Grey and a Woodstock re-enactment.”

“Oh?” Zuri raises her eyebrow and strokes her freaky-looking cat.

“I ain't gonna beat around the bush. Bobby says you're good at finding things. Finding people. I got someone that needs findin'.”

The room is really quiet, nothing but the click of Zuri's beads and Dean can barely hear that over the erratic thumping in his ears.

Zuri's eyes are sad and so, so sorry. “I don't know where your brother is, Dean.”

Dean swallows something like panic and squeezes his hands into biting fists so he won't start smashing every goddamn piece of painted porcelain he can see – and what is that, anyway, serving him tea and cookies like this is some kind of kid's birthday party, what the actual _fuck._

Then Zuri is suddenly in his space, hands pressed like bookend vices against his temples. He sees her eyes, brown and deep, fixed on his, and there's this touch against his head. A brush so gentle yet firm, he can't even keep up with it.

Another second, Zuri is sitting down. Calm. Like nothing happened.

She picks up her tea and sips, gives him a look. “He locked up, tight, waitin'. Waitin' to jump. He'll need to jump sometime, boy. You have ta make him.”

“Yeah, all right.” Okay, Bobby was wrong this once. The lady is obviously a few guitars short of a punk rock band. “Look, lady, you're real nice and you bake like Kareem holds a basketball, but if you can't help me then you're wastin' time I don't got.”

Time he could be spending searching.

“Believe me, boy, or don't. I said what I got ta say.”

If that's not a dismissal, Dean doesn't know what is. He sneers and barely resists the urge to kick her creepy ass cat directly in its face as he slips out the front door. He straps himself quickly, methodically, into the Impala. Just another kook, spouting off encrypted bullshit that he needs a roadmap around, all this fortune cookie shit that doesn't do him or his brother any good. Waste of time.

When he looks up, Zuri is standing on her porch, rubbing her arms against the chill. She suddenly looks skinny, and small, and young, and Dean wants to ask if she has family, if she has anywhere to go.  
He keeps quiet.

Zuri puffs out a breath and eyes him. “Where will ya go?”

People have been asking him that a lot lately. He doesn't know the answer now, either.

“Around,” he says, since that's the best he's got.

She's pretty and nice and Dean knows he'd kill her in a second if he thought it'd bring Sam back.

It won't.

“Take care of yourself, lady.” Dean thinks of something, turns back. “Oh. And if someone who's supposed to be dead and isn't anymore, comes screaming at you, shoot 'em. Then run.”

The look she gives him when he pushes a gun into her hand is part horror and amusement and he almost laughs.

She pushes the gun right on back to him. “Avoid the cities, boy. Dat's where they swarm.”

Then she winks at him and disappears into her house in a clank of beads and swirling purple skirts. Dean gets in the Impala, where it's not much warmer than outside but beats the alternative. She starts a little less easy in the cold – still, she starts and can get him wherever he's going, and in the long run, that's all that's going to really count.


End file.
